


Pistanthrophobia

by hux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Body Image, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Self-Worth Issues, WIP, more tags will be added with each update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 02:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11049828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hux/pseuds/hux
Summary: Protecting the thermal oscillator should have been a simple task for someone as fearsome as Ren. For someone as omniscient as Snoke, how could he not have foreseen such an attack? How could a Stormtrooper assigned to Sanitation know so much about the inner workings of Starkiller Base? Where had the Resistance retrieved his speech and blueprints that were under substantial lock and key?They had a leak and General Hux had a feeling that he knew just where to find it.





	1. Prologue

_Revenge is a confession of pain._  
—Latin Proverb

  
Imagine, for a moment, raising a child. You nurture it, care about it. There's a chance that it becomes all you truly live for. From nothing you build something and for all of your hard work and dedication, you have something tangible to show. Something to prove your worth; that it wasn't a mistake in the first place. Through thick and thin you work your way through conception, birth, adolescence, the dreaded teenage years...

Suddenly you find yourself sitting there at your child's graduation ceremony. They're an 'adult' now and you feel so proud of them for getting through some of the roughest times of their life and pursing, just like you did. They grab the diploma with a grin, taking their place among their classmates. Something tangible, even for them. The procession of the newly graduated class is tear-jerking. They all look so proud. Your child is at the front, the valedictorian, beaming. Just as you push yourself out of your seat to greet them and congratulate them amongst other proud guardians, you notice chaos. Time freezes. Your child drops dead in front of you, all pomp and circumstance disrupted. In a single moment, years are lost. There is no word for the shock and grief you feel. And god, the _anger_. Gone, just like that.

It hadn't just been some superweapon. It had been far more than that. It housed thousands of troops, officers, and their families. It had been an engineering marvel. It had given him purpose when _everyone_ questioned his worth, even himself. It had been evidence that he was in control of something and could succeed where others had failed. And it was gone, just like that.

Five planets destroyed with a single order. The Republic's heart annihilated with a simple command. _Murderer_. _Filth_. _Insane_. _This is what happens when psychopaths don't get laid. Who'd fuck that hideous ginger piece of shit, anyway?_ _Yeah, I'd be just as mad if I had that much of a looooathsssssssome lisp, too_. _Parents, this is why you hug your children_. _Faggot. Probably sucked a ton of Imp dick to get that rank._

He had been on the holonet. He knew what they were saying after the Resistance had leaked his speech. They may have been things that he had heard before but it didn't mean they stung any less. Deep down, he knew that they had a point. If his father had still been alive... Well, he didn't want to think about it.

General Armitage Hux had not dealt with the loss as gracefully as he may have preferred. If people had thought that he was obsessive about work before, he exceeded their expectations in a poor attempt at coping. He was either head's down pouring through datafiles in his office or pacing anxiously around the _Finalizer's_ bridge, calculating. He had something in his back pocket so, at least, not all hope was lost. The man rarely spoke a word to anyone save for barking a few orders here and there. It was clear that he was living in his head and everyone knew better than to question him.

He had been sent reeling, his life's work and his greatest accomplishment gone in a simple act of defiance by an ex-Stormtrooper and a ragtag gang of deviants. A blasted Wookiee and an infant of a Force user had been able to best Supreme Leader Snoke's pet, Kylo Ren, who had always been touted to be unusually strong with the Force. He could take down whole worlds with a few sweeps of his lightsaber. He could succeed where non-sensitives like the general could not even begin to comprehend. 

Hux called bullshit.

Protecting the thermal oscillator should have been a simple task for someone as fearsome as Ren. For someone as omniscient as Snoke, how could he not have foreseen such an attack? How could a Stormtrooper assigned to Sanitation know so much about the inner workings of Starkiller Base? Where had the Resistance retrieved his speech and blueprints that were under substantial lock and key?

They had a leak and he had a feeling that he knew just where to find it.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Implied past child abuse and rape

“She couldn’t get any farther away inside from her skin. She couldn’t get away.”  
― Cynthia Voigt, _When She Hollers_

  
Trust was something that did not come naturally to General Hux. It had been proven time and time again that it could be easily misplaced and people, as a rule, were self-centred conniving scum. The Republic was proof enough of that but so was his upbringing. If a boy could not trust his own father, who _could_ he trust?

The answer was simple: no one but himself.

A lifetime of abuse had certainly taught him that. Being treated like an object of pleasure to be used, beaten, and discarded truly worked wonders for one’s self-esteem and faith in humanity. Even an appointment to general at such an ungodly young age didn’t change the fact that he _wasn’t good enough_. He did, at least, attempt to convince himself otherwise over the years. Perhaps being on his knees wasn’t the only position that he was born for. Starkiller was his one shot at proving them all wrong. 

And then came Kylo Ren.

Hux had never been good with people but he was able to at least feign congeniality if the situation called for it. He had been conditioned as such and for that he was mildly grateful. Eye contact was something that he continued to struggle with so he thought that the masked newcomer might actually be someone that he could work with. 

Keyword: _thought_.

The general thrived on order and discipline. Ren was the polar opposite; unstable, disheveled, and had an air about him that he believed that he was leagues above everyone else. They did, however, have one thing in common. They both had a deep seeded desire for control.

_’You are to give my apprentice everything that he desires to be successful in his missions, General. See to it that you do not become a hindrance. I believe you know the consequences of such actions.’_

Simple enough. Armitage was confident that he could handle the matter. Besides, he had plenty of obstacles throughout his life and he’d been able to handle them expertly. His father may have given him a different analysis but he had learnt that there was no pleasing the man when you were his runt of a bastard son. So long as he could be accepting of his own performance, he knew that he would be in the clear. Thus far, Supreme Leader Snoke had also been a supporter of his train of thought and judgment so this would be easy. Whilst playing the role of a glorified babysitter was not exactly on his extensive to-do list, there were certainly worse things that he could have been assigned to.

Just when he was becoming comfortable with his new duty, the first ‘session’ happened.

Armitage had been in the process of relieving himself of his triple shift on the bridge when he found himself face-to-face with Ren. He had offered a quick apology and stepped aside to let the other man pass before he was brutishly shoulder-checked into the nearest wall, his forehead coming into forceful contact with the durasteel. Having failed to prepare for the unprompted aggression, the general clumsily collected himself with a wince and barely audible moan, hands moving to nurse his bruising head. Cursed pale skin.

“I apologise. I suppose I should have moved out of the way a bit faster. Long shift,” he offered, lips twitching in an attempt at a smile but failing to relieve themselves of his permanent frown. 

“Do you ever shut up?” came the distorted reply. 

“I—” The general’s retort was cut off by an extended hand, fingers curling in time with an overwhelming feeling of suffocation. Waves of terror, dread, sorrow, anger… They all cascaded to the forefront of his mind, his eyes widening in horror as the feelings began to increase in intensity. It was a sensation like no other he had ever experienced and his gut reaction was to fight back but, alas, he could not move. He was frozen in time whilst his most painful memories began to surface and he had to bear witness to them playing out in front of him like some sort of sick mockery. Most were things that he had spent years repressing. Things best left forgotten in a reconditioning session. 

Just when he thought that he could take no more, it stopped. The general was left panting, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. Was this what the Force was? He had heard stories but had never experienced such an affront. Or was it simply all in his head and his neglected body was crying out for attention? A tension headache, perhaps?

“You’re more interesting than I had anticipated,” the metallic voice stated with an air of amusement, pulling Hux back to the present moment. 

“What in Tarkin’s name---?” 

With another wave of Ren’s hand, the young general fell silent once more. His vision blurred, his mind clouded. He could hear the other man’s orders to follow him and his own robotic reply, however, _he_ was not the one responding. Whatever it was that the freak had done now, it was quite clear that the general had lost all control of himself and had passed the reigns over to that cretin.

* * *

Had it been hours? Days? Did the amount of missing time matter when he woke up in a pool of his own blood on the floor of his quarters with his jodhpurs around his ankles and a torn apart tunic? Armitage sat up in a daze and gasped with a sharp intake of breath as the excruciating pain emanating from his rear woke him up. It only took him a few seconds to process the all too familiar situation before he was struggling to push himself up off of the ground, hell bent on reaching the refresher as soon as humanly possible.

All it took was a simple side-glance into the mirror to send his head directly into the toilet, all contents of his stomach (or lack thereof) rushing upwards and out in a frenzy. The lacerations and bruising were far more intense than he could have imagined and the black and blue only served to accentuate his bony frame, pale skin, and protruding ribs. This hadn’t been the work of a man. It had clearly been a monster. He thought that he looked like he had barely survived a year in a sarlacc pit. With his chest heaving, he came up for a moment of air before he was back to dry heaving into the basin. 

He managed to pick himself up again, gingerly peeling off the remnants of his uniform as he shakily tossed the scraps towards the sink. He punched the button inside of the shower, letting out a shout as the scalding hot water poured over him as he blindly struggled to reach for a cloth in order to begin scrubbing himself. He bit down on his lower lip, drawing more blood as he sanitised his wounds, the sound of the running water drowning out his involuntary sobs of pain.

 _’Nothing but a whore. Just like your mother.’_ _’I’m tired about hearing that you bleed too much. Shouldn’t you be used to that by now, boy?’_ _’The officers are complaining that you_ still _cry. Do you really expect to lead if you can’t even take a well-deserved beating?'_

His father’s words echoed like a bugged holorecord as he spent the better part of an hour attempting to clean himself as thoroughly as possible. He made every effort to avoid looking in the mirror as he clamored for a towel, wrapping it around his body as tightly as possible without upsetting his body’s attempts at healing itself. 

_You’ll get through this. You’ve been here before, you can get through it again. You’re prepared now. It won’t happen again. Just don’t think about it,_ he tried to tell himself as he carefully limped his way out of the refresher and towards a wardrobe. The clock on the nearby console indicated that he had approximately thirteen minutes before he was scheduled to be on the bridge. _Fortunately the cut of your uniform and greatcoat should hide the majority… Just play it off like the abrasions on your face were due to a particularly difficult training simulation and you’ll be fine. They know better than to question. You won’t let this happen again._

An unread message on his datapad taunted him as he dressed himself and the desire to go back to hugging the basin began to creep up from the pit of his stomach. _Ten minutes._ He carefully parted his hair using a small mirror inside of the door of his wardrobe and taking every precaution to not look himself in the eyes. _Eight minutes._ Satisfied, he grabbed the datapad from his desk and unlocked it with a scan of his pointer finger. _Seven minutes._ The unread message popped up on the screen as Armitage began to taste bile in his mouth.

_You really_ do _bleed too much.  
Get used to it, General._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big ol' work in progress. I invite any and all feedback since I've never actually written and shared any fandom work before despite years of wanting to. Also never shared an unfinished work... Let's see where this goes, shall we?


End file.
